[Ecommerce] Jeff Chester re Digital dirt road ahead?

[Manon Ress]

http://alternet.org/mediaculture/35557/

Save the Internet
By Jeffrey Chester, AlterNet. Posted April 27, 2006.

With the help of Republicans in congress, mammoth telecommunications
companies are fighting to restrict your internet freedom.

=09Imagine, wanting to donate money to a charity and not being able to
open the non-profit=92s web page because of the charity=92s inability to
afford the =09=09=09dominant Internet provider=92s fees required to make th=
e
page efficient? Imagine the millions of life saving dollars these
charities will lose if lobbyists get =09=09their way? What if your child
is sick and you can=92t gain access to a support group=92s page because
the support group can=92t afford the fees? Or even =09=09=09scarier, imagin=
e
not gaining speedy access to a politician=92s views because the
specific provider is against his or her ideology?
-- Who's the Boss? star Alyssa Milano

Will the Internet in the U.S. become, in the words of AT&T (SBC) CEO,
their company's private "pipes"? Or will it remain, as the Supreme
Court cited in 1997, "the most participatory form of mass speech yet
developed"? These two very different perspectives reflect what's at
stake in the growing fight now in Congress over the Internet's future.

A growing movement of online users, public advocates, Internet
"visionaries," bloggers, and online corporations are fighting to have
Congress enact what are called "network neutrality" safeguards. Such
rules would preserve the Internet's essential democratic structure:
all content would be required to flow into our PC's and digital
devices in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. Network neutrality
would help ensure that Internet serves the interests of diversity of
speech. As the new Savetheinternet coalition put it, network
neutrality is the equivalent of the Internet's First Amendment.

But an unfettered open road is directly at odds with the broadband
business plans of AT&T (formerly SBC), Comcast, Time Warner, and
Verizon. The cable and telephone industry see enormous revenues as
operators of a private Internet toll-road. How has the Internet -- so
diverse and unwieldly -- fallen into their hands? The answer is (of
course) the Bush Administration. Heavily lobbied by the cable and
phone giants, the Bush Federal Communications Commission has been
eliminating the rules that required the Internet to operate in a non-
discriminatory manner.

Under the "old" policy governing what's called the "dial-up"
Internet, the public was guaranteed that their Internet Service
Provider had to treat all online content in an unbiased manner. ISP's
couldn't, for example, speed up the email or websites they liked, or
decide to slow down content it didn't like (such as from a peace
group). The former rules also permitted the public to choose from
literally thousands of ISP's to connect them to the Internet. Such
federal safeguards have, sadly, now bitten the digital dust.

It's all about broadband

Verizon, Comcast and the others had former FCC chair Michael Powell
and current chair Kevin Martin strip away these rules because they
were an obstacle to their plans to dominate the high-speed Internet,
or broadband, market. If a purely open and non-discriminatory
Internet remained, then anyone could distribute a movie or video
program -- a serious threat to the cable industry's monopoly over TV
distribution.

No one needs a "Ma Bell" anymore to bring us telephone service.
Practically anyone can now use the Internet to provide phone service
(known as voice over internet protocol, VOIP). In other words, if the
internet remained a real First Amendment friendly pipeline, both the
cable and phone industry would see their profits and power evaporate
-- fast.

But it wasn't only to prevent competitors that spurred our new
broadband bandits to action. With the federal non-discrimination
policy now toast, the phone and cable companies could embark in
earnest with plans to -- in their words -- "monetize" digital
distribution. Through their sole control over America's residential
broadband pipes (they have more than 90% of the market), they planned
to set up a multi-tiered and pay-as-you-go private internet highway.

There would be a new fast lane, giving the content owned by the
phone, cable and other media giants, the fastest preferential
treatment. Video and multi-media programming owned by AT&T and
Comcast, for example, would be received lightning speed on PCs,
digital TV's and mobile devices. Those that couldn't afford to pay
would be relegated to what the phone and cable lobbyists derisively
called the "public" Internet.

This so-called public lane would be the equivalent of a digital dirt
road, easily marginalized by the majority of the public that has come
to enjoy ever-faster and more efficient connections. A slew of
Silicon Valley tech companies, including Cisco, have built broadband
delivery equipment that allows a phone or cable company to make
business decisions about every packet of data that travels over its
lines.

Imagine a private air traffic controller working for airline X. Their
planes would be given priority take-off and landings -- while
competitors and others slowly circle overhead. Only those who could
afford to make a pay-off (such as huge fees or a cut of their
business) would be afforded similar treatment. The Bells and cable
hoped that with this control over the data lines, their broadband
content competitors would crash and burn.

The cable and telephone broadband scam however, is now meeting
intense opposition. First, there is a growing opposition movement
against the privatization of the internet. Led by Free Press, there
is a new "savetheinternet.org" coalition, representing a diverse
group of activists, users, and experts, from across the political
spectrum, including Gun Owners of America, the United Church of
Christ, and Craigslist's Craig Newmark.

Earlier in the week, this group and MoveOn.org helped flood the halls
of Congress with emails and online petitions calling on the Congress
to enact safeguards for "network neutrality." The power of the cable/
telco alliance to determine the future of the U.S. Internet has also
alarmed many of the country's most powerful online companies -- such
as Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. They have launched their own new
coalition, called "Don't Mess with the Net.com."

The GOP -- led by Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Energy and
Commerce Chair Joe Barton (Tx.) -- are firmly in the grip of the
broadband monopoly lobby. Yesterday, Barton's committee rejected a
network neutrality provision, 34-22 (sponsored by Rep. Ed Markey
among others). Helping the Republicans defeat the Internet freedom
measure were five Democrats: including Edolphus Townes (NY), Albert
Wynn (Md.), Charles A, Gonzalez (Tx.), Bobby Rush (Il.), and Gene
Green (Tx.). (It was Rep. Rush, a former activist, whose endorsement
permitted the Republicans to call their broadband bill a bi-partisan
effort).

But the growing outcry to protect the internet led to House
Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi formally endorsing the network
neutrality call. There is now growing optimism among "save the
Internet" supporters that the Senate, which will soon take up a
broadband communications bill, will endorse a neutrality rule. A bi-
partisan plan to do just that has already been prepared by Sen.
Olympia Snowe (R-Me.) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND).

Federal rules to ensure that the Internet remain a democratic medium
of expression is essential if the U.S. is to ever become a more just
and civil society. In the emerging era, the nature of what will be a
ubiquitious broadband communications system will greatly define us as
a culture. It must be one where the voices of those calling for
justice, healthcare, environmental protection and peace can resonate
as loudly as the commercial messages brought to us by Time Warner and
AT&T. Network neutrality, or internet freedom, is a necessary and
critical step to make sure such voices are part of the mainstream --
not exiled to the digital dirt road.

Sign the petition HERE or contact your rep HERE.

Jeffrey Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital
Democracy (www.democraticmedia.org).

************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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